“You are right! Thank you, and good bye!”
Mr. Burnett had just hung up the receiver when Major Simpson came bustling into the office.
“Ah, Mr. Theodore, and how are you this nice sunny morning? Spring in the air, my boy, spring! I have come to see you concerning this O’Gorman person. Singular case—quite singular! She is actually working behind the notion counter this morning quite as though nothing had happened—not at all abashed—but meek withal, meek and I must say modest. She dropped her eyes when I passed and had occasion to stoop and hide her head. Modest, quite modest! I feel more inclined to deal gently with one who shows becoming modesty.”
Mr. Burnett could not help a sly smile but he controlled himself and said rather sternly:
“Major Simpson, I ask you to let me do what dealing is necessary with Miss O’Gorman, in fact, I ask you most emphatically.”
This was as near as either of the Burnett brothers had ever come to commanding the old gentleman whom they had so unwillingly inherited from their predecessors, but Mr. Theodore Burnett had no intention of letting Major Simpson mix himself up in the matter of Josie O’Gorman and her methods any more than possible.
“Certainly!” said the elderly detective, stiffly. “I have never been one to overstep authority, but I feel it is my duty to warn you, young and untried, against the machinations of a type like this O’Gorman person.”
“All right, Major Simpson, I am warned—and now I shall go and interview the young lady.”
“Do not be too easy on her,” insisted the determined Major. “I am—” But what he was saying Mr. Burnett did not wait to hear. He felt that Josie must be told immediately of the silver fox scarf and fur coat sunning in the rear window at Number 11 Meadow Street, and of the large packing box and wardrobe trunk and of Mrs. Leslie’s gossip. He was in the elevator and making for the street floor of the store before the Major’s sentence was completed.
All was as Major Simpson had reported. There was Josie O’Gorman conducting herself as though nothing had happened, selling tapes and pins with as much industry as she would have shown had her living depended upon it.